Just finished a long chat with Trace Mayer, who is one of the most knowledgeable people around when it comes to Bitcoin. A major financial globetrotter, Trace tells me that he just got back from a trip that took him to Switzerland and then Indonesia. In Switzerland, he visited a vault where among many other security measures, they weigh you before going in, to make sure you weigh the same when heading out.
He tells me that Peter Theil just invested $2 million dollars in BitPay, a global peer-to-peer Bitcoin payment network. A global billionaire, who prefers to remain anonymous, also has invested in BitPay, says Trace.
Trace also pointed out to me that Google has just launched an email payment service, whereby you can send payments via an email link, without going through a network such as PayPal. His point wasn't the service that Google has set up, but that the technology is there to send money by email link and that something similar will emerge in the Bitcoin world.
I also had a good talk with Steve Michaels of Keep Your Assets. He sees Bitcoin developing on a two tiered level similar to what I have discussed. He compares it to the fiat based currency system, where we have many using bank accounts that can be tracked, while other transactions are done in cash. With bitcoins, there will be a registered world and an unregistered world.
Steve pointed out that most of the early developers of Bitcoin have libertarian leanings and have thought out what government moves against Bitcoin are likely to be made and they have also thought out counter-moves.
Trace and Steve both pointed out that complete anonymity would be very difficult to reach using Bitcoin, but measures can be taken to make tracking extremely difficult and expensive. Open transactions appears to be a program that can be an important tool in financial cryptography.
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